In the year 1991, I was twelve years old and fancied myself quite the gamer. I didn’t call myself a gamer, because that phrase didn’t exist yet. I was just a kid who played a lot of video games, and I was pretty proud of that. I had my NES, with plenty of hours sunk into Mario and Zelda. I had my dad’s PC, where I was playing things like Space Quest and Sim City. I even still had the old Intellevision, where I could bust out Shark! Shark! and Burger Time if I was so inclined.

I knew platformers. I knew adventure games. I knew whatever you would classify Marble Madness as.

The one thing I didn’t know was the CRPG.

I had played some Dungeons & Dragons titles on the Intellevision, and while they captured some of the aspects of exploration and treasure finding, they didn’t have much in the way of story or theme.  I had also dabbled with Final Fantasy and Dragon Warrior on the NES, but something about that had just failed to grab my imagination (not to mention my attention, which waned steadily with my early confrontation with level grinding).  For the most part, the idea of role-playing in video games was completely foreign to me.

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A memorable villain in a game can be a powerful force. Players can learn to hate them, fear them, or even pity them.  Everyone who has played Final Fantasy VI remembers Kefka, and any StarCraft player in the world probably has a firm opinion on the Queen of Blades. The big villains – the bosses – have a lot going for them when it comes to memorability: the story usually revolves around them, they usually get the most epic battles, and quite often they get the best graphical treatment, too.

But what about the little guys?  What about the endless underlings the player crushes on their journey to the Big Bad?  What makes those guys memorable?

Consider, for a moment, the humble Goomba.  Almost anyone who has had contact with video games over the past 25 years can probably identify one in an instant, most likely right down to even knowing their name.  Even those that might not know the name still know they are “the little mushroom men from Mario” (as my father has called them). Koopa Troopas fall into that same category.  Heck, most of the enemies from the Mario series fall into that category.  But why?

For the Mario cast, much of it comes down to longevity and repetition.  Goombas and Koopas and the like have been harassing gamers for over two decades, remaining relatively constant throughout.  Though there have been subtle changes to their looks over the years, they remain easily identifiable, even after the jump from 2d to 3d.  Add to that plenty of out-of-game marketing of the characters, from cartoon appearances to plush toys, and you’ve got the makings of some pretty iconic underlings. So while the Mario minions have a lot going in their favor, what about all the other game baddies that stick in our minds, regardless of repetition or merchandising?  What turns a low-level baddie into something that stays with us, sucking up precious memory space?

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Think back to the last time you played Uno – it doesn’t matter whether it was the XBL version or the old-fashioned card version — and try to remember when the game shifted from friendly to contentious.  Uno games always shift from friendly to contentious, no matter who is playing. Odds are, whatever the moment is that you are picturing, it probably involved the “Skip” card.

If you are somehow unfamiliar with the rules of Uno (say, perhaps, you were born as a fully grown clone), all you need to know is that the “Skip” card does just what it says: it skips the player directly after whoever played it.  The first time someone gets skipped, everyone probably has a good laugh, and the skipee jokingly plans their vengeance. Once a few more Skips are played, people start to get a little more tense; the card has become a weapon of direct aggression.  Eventually, someone will at some point in the game, through whatever cruel trick of chance or fate, end up getting skipped multiple times in a row.  At this point, if this player has any sort of human spirit within them, they will explode in righteous anger.

Understandably so.

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I have had a hankering lately to play a game that does not exist.  Specifically, a Western RPG as they used to be, before Bioware and Bethesda took up the reins of Western RPGdom.  Of course, many of you will say there is nothing wrong with those two being in charge, but I’m afraid that Dragon Age and Fallout 3 just don’t scratch that itch for me.

So, why?  Why am I dissatisfied with the current crop of Western RPGs?  What are they missing, what are they doing wrong?

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There has been a bit of a gaming lull lately, and while I am still working my way through the Elite Four in Soul Silver, and still striking the earth as often as I can in Dwarf Fortress, I felt the need for a something with a little more… something.

As it so happens, over the last month, I have had the occasion to react in abject horror when two different people told me they never played through Final Fantasy III/VI (I’ll stop doing that now).  Both were people I would generally consider “well versed” gamers, and I viewed such a gap in their gaming history as a mark of shame.  So, after vigorously explaining to them that they just had to play, it seemed like the perfect time to give it another whirl myself. 

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Mention the concept of “grinding” in a room full of gamers, and you are liable to get one of two reactions: either some titters of excitement, or a cacophonous mix of sighs and groans.  There are, in my experience, very few people who respond to the idea of the grind with simple ambivalence.

Grinding, in traditional gaming terms, stems from RPGs where the player has to fight battle after battle in order to gain experience and level up before being able to proceed further in the game (think of the original Final Fantasy and the huge jump in difficulty when moving from one area into the next). In more general terms, grinding is any time the player engages in a repetitive activity for the purpose of gaining some sort of reward (think brewing hundreds of potions in Oblivion to become a better alchemist). 

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The Nintendo DS has proven itself to be quite the repository for “old fashioned” turn-based JRPGs.  From remakes of old Final Fantasies to entirely new creations, a strong library has built up over the years, giving fans plenty to choose from.  With my DS as my trusty companion on my daily commute every day, I have ample time to play through such involved affairs, and I’ve sampled a pretty wide swath of those that are out there.

When I wrapped up Bowser’s Inside Story several weeks back, I sat down to take a look at what to tackle next.  Poking through Amazon’s DS listings, I spotted an upcoming title called Nostalgia.  The game was named such, as the marketing materials told me, both because of its setting and because of its “return” to old-fashioned JRPGs of days gone by.

Unfortunately, the only nostalgia that Nostalgia evokes is for the time before you started playing it.

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If someday I am standing at the Pearly Gates and St. Peter looks down at the sum total of my life and asks, “You played Civilization 2 once for an entire weekend? Like, 32 out of 48 hours? Seriously?” I will answer him, head held high, “Yes, yes I did.  And it was totally awesome.”

It is true that in my younger days, I put in many a marathon session of gaming.  Entire nights or weekends could blow by as I sat immersed in whatever game was occupying my attention at the time.  An entire Christmas vacation could be lost to Final Fantasy VI, or nights that should have been spent writing history papers were spent tracking down Sectoids in X-Com. Even up to my years in college, I still might put off more pressing concerns to stay up until the wee hours of the morning waiting to see what was coming next in Silent Hill or the like.

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One of the nice things about games is that, unlike in real life, you can usually pretend that the world revolves around you.  I mean, I have tried on occasion in real life to take the view that I am the most important person in the world, but damn if the world doesn’t agree with me.

In games, however, there is no question as to who is in charge.  Mother Brain will patiently wait deep underground in Zebes for me to show up, those zombies will linger calmly outside the window for me to pass by before crashing through, and the Combine wouldn’t even think about attacking the rocket site until I am fully prepared. 

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There is no doubt in my mind that there are many games I recall with far more kindness than they deserve.  Were I actually to go back and play them, it is entirely possible the experience would wipe away my cherished memories and replace them with bitter truth – it is for that reason that they remain untouched in the far recesses of time.

The question this raises to me is:  If I remember some games too fondly, am I perhaps also remembering some games too harshly?  If that is the case, then there is no other game better to check that theory against than Final Fantasy VII.

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